‘An urgent thing to do right now’: everyday learning and environmental remittances among Vietnamese university students in Australia

Australia has a flourishing international education business to support its growth, but air travel associated with international student movement generates a significant amount of carbon emissions. These environmental impacts are often neglected in universities’ sustainability reports and plans as this perspective might negatively impact their reputation as advocates for a sustainable future for all. Acknowledging this impact, this research focuses on the potential for international education to transfer innovative mindset and behaviours about environmental protection from the host country back home as the international students move across borders and argues that this can be conceptualised as a form of social remittance. I conducted a photovoice research with twenty-four Vietnamese students, including international students or international alumni in Australia and three studying in Vietnam. Findings from this small-scale participatory research suggest that even when Australian universities do not focus in their curriculum on environmental knowledge or encouraging environmentally aware behaviours, they do so indirectly by bringing the students here and exposing them to new kinds of everyday knowledge and behaviours. Furthermore, having learned new behaviours, students then find ways to talk about them to family and friends at home.